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I came up a crowded back alley looking for a place to eat. Needed something sweet. December. Both raining and freezing. Freezing to the bone. Freezing, although I had my polar jacket on. Expensive stuff, these jackets that are meant to be resistant to anything.
Discovering that the street was dead-ended, I noticed the grimy old gal. She must have been at least 60. Looking to be 80, 90... Instead of rushing back, leaving her with a coin, I stopped. Glanced. Stared. Out of plain curiousity, actually.
And as my pulse was calming down, I started to study the details of her sunken face and bent body. The bony cheeks, the knife-egded nose; her head looked like a skull. And leaning as she was to a staircase, sitting so totally still on the wet pavement, something about her looked really dead. It looked like she'd beein sitting there for ages. Dead. But the lilac-blue mouth sent out staccato signals of life. Yes, there were similarities to Sitting Bull in a short-spotted second. Lacking his dignity of course... No! Wait a minute..
At first she'd only been reaching out her three-fingered hand. Eyes closed: Close to eyeless in fact. Just sensing my presence. But as nothing happened and the stranger remained, the poor one offered a glimpse. Unfolding a pair of eyes that must be the darkest ones I ever seen. Black. And I mean BLACK...
As she opened the soul-mirrors she withdrew her hand. Scared me. But I kept on looking. Felt that I just had to it. That it would be a lack of respect to look another way. She didn't smile. But for a short period of time a certain mildness came over her. A mildness just as the rain turned into snow.
Walking away some minutes later I realized that I'd forgot to give her any money. I felt like a thief. Wanted so badly to give the old lady all the money I was carrying. So that she could rise from the gutter, at least once before she died, to get a decent meal.
But as I came rushing back to where she had sat, I saw her walking away. I ran up alongside her, offering a rather huge amount of money. But the red-scarfed woman shook her head. Just shook her head and walked on.
I used to have strong eyes. Daring eyes. Nowadays I prefer voluntary blindness. Don't quite know why. I'm just running around with this big, artistic red scarf. Presumably hoping that some freaked-out traveller will offer me a daring look.
Pål Mathiesen
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